mouf 2021-10-05 08:47
Really tricky to launch the game but i really love the ambiance, maybe too long to restart ! GG
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD49 → Day Broken
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 473 | 3.72 | 36 | |
| Fun | 1286 | 2.86 | 36 | |
| Innovation | 619 | 3.44 | 36 | |
| Theme | 1218 | 2.98 | 36 | |
| Graphics | 156 | 4.35 | 37 | |
| Audio | 1 | |||
| Mood | 70 | 4.22 | 37 |
Really tricky to launch the game but i really love the ambiance, maybe too long to restart ! GG
Was there anything in particular that was tricky about the launch? I've been concerned about potential missing DLLs, if that's the case please let me know.
I love myself some creepy games! But the long intro after you die can get a bit annoying if you die a lot (like me haha)
@reronin Quick note: you can insta-escape in the death screen, you dont have to wait for the "press escape" to show up.
Very spooky game with outstanding visuals for a LD game! It has a great atmosphere too. It was super ambitious to use a custom engine with C++ so well done! It ran great for me (i7-6700k + RTX3070ti). The only problem I encountered is that it would not hide my mouse cursor.
the atmosphere and sound are amazing. it would have been nice to have a try again that starts from the door opened...
@connor-magson Thank you so much! The hiding cursor thing is a bug that I hope to have fixed asap.
oooof that's unpleasant. In a good way (as ever) but yeeeeesh. I really liked the computer voice a whole lot, liked(hated) the ambience. One tweak I'd suggest is balancing out the voice over when your character speaks as that scared me just by being loud >.> It did work for me straight away though - extracted all into folder and worked well!
@darthboseiju Yeah I realized only after the fact that the audio level on the voice is way too high compared to the rest of the game. Sorry about that! Glad you liked it (i think?)
Yeah I think so too :P It's the ol' "horror is both great but boy I struggle with horror"
@v174m1n Yeah in hindsight I probably should have done that, I didn't anticipate the game being as difficult as it is (its really my fault for only playtesting near the very end) Glad you liked the atmosphere and the sounds, those were 2 of the aspects I worked the hardest on!
I can't imagine how much work that custom engine was but it definitely paid off! It's a very distinct look that scratches some of the same itches that 'low-fi' does while being really, really hi-fi. The blurriness around objects when they move is a very distinct effect and I like it a lot. Only two graphical things that brought me out of it was the periodic vertical scanline effect (I think the graphics are distorted enough without the deliberate effect, and it was distracting) and whatever far-culling effect caused the far end of the tunnel to be cut off. Other than that, impeccable!
You did a really good job of creating the mood as well. The color palette felt very 'sheltering-from-overly-bright-sun' for me, even in the dark corners, which was impressive.
Sound design also really good. The echo is very nice and moody. I will say that the narration is *almost* too distorted for how critical it is. It usually took me a couple times to understand each clip, which translated into death more than once.
Personally, I think the monsters are a little unreadable. The ones that are in the 'go-very-fast-when-not-watched' ended up being trial and error for me, since I got killed by ones that appeared where I wasn't looking while I was trying to keep others under observation. The near-instantaneous speed and the fact that it happened when I was looking away meant that it felt like a random event rather than a kill by a monster.
You're not supposed to be able to ride the train, right?
@binary-systems Thank you for the fantastic feedback. I have decided to include transcripts of the voice recordings in the description of the game now, as they are very crucial for the game (silly me shouldve provided subtitles in game, but oh well). They explain the monsters behaviors (albeit they can be a bit non-clear) as well as providing more general info. The 'clicker' as I call it is also explained in the voice log.
As for the train, there is a lever on one of the sides. No spoilers, but try pulling it!
This is just "WOW"! This game is incredible, the only thing is that i don't know how well it fits the "unstable" theme. At least it's not really apparent. But still it's really a good game!
@saidrog Thank you so much! Yeah, it doesn't follow the theme super well. I was thinking more along the fact that the sun is viewed as such a stable source of life that a world where it has turned against us would be horrible. "Unstable reality" was the idea I had in mind, and I tried to spice it up with some post process effects to make the whole game also look a bit more unstable.
Impressive oO Ambiance is incredible, graphics are insane !
Maybe add a retry option to restart without listening again to computer.
This is one good looking game! The custom engine is very impressive.
My only complaint is that it would be nice to skip the intro voice lines on the second playthrough after a restart
I got really excited when I saw this. The visuals and mood great. As almost everyone else has said the difficulty and slow restart time make the game pretty frustrating, but with a little more polish this would be an excellent SCP game.
This game and engine are VERY impressive, man. It gives me heavy "Outlast" vibes, and it was a strong atmosphere. I also love how the mesh, textures, and audio are all accessible from the folder. For someone like me, who loves to look into game files to see how things work together, this was basically heaven. The graphics and post process are high-quality and almost professional looking. It does bother me that the first person camera doesn't clamp it's vertical rotation, so you can rotate the camera all the way around, but that's easy to ignore. I really wish that there was a retry option without having to listen to the computer again, as it really hurts the atmosphere the game's trying to build up and can make things tedious.
Impressive visuals, the character walk and camera zoom is nicely done too and flickering/screen tearing realy conects it together. Sound is also very good, my only complaint is that intro is unskippable and because i died alot on the begining (since the first few times i didn't even see the monsters) i had to listen to it many times.
Other than that you made very nice foundation for maybe future full fleged horror game.
I admire developers who don't follow the direction of making a funny game in a jam. It seems to me much more difficult to set the mood of a horror game. But I think you hit it pretty well.
@pikario Thank you so much for the feedback! Yeah, this seems to be a common critique so I will get on fixing that asap.
@blaster391 Thank you! I worked really hard on the engine :smile:
@mrchippy Yeah this has been a suggestion by several people I know and honestly it is really tempting to try to fledge the basis here into a more fully fledged horror game one day!
@proxy-games Outlast was a strong inspiration for this game, so it's very nice that inspiration is noticeable! Really happy to see the openness of all the assets is appreciated. I myself also really like tinkering with that stuff, and can get pretty frustrated when assets are hidden in unreadable file formats (or are even encrypted!)
Clamping the camera rotation should be a really quick and easy fix, so I'll make sure to get on fixing this and bundle it in the same release that adds the skipping of the intro voice lines.
@achef122 Thank you so much! Yeah, this is common feedback so I will make sure to fix this.
@cabjhegas Thank you! Honestly I really struggle making funnier games, horror as a genre really clicks with me for some reason.
Love a spooky game! Great job!
Definitely succeeds in being spooky! You should have opted into the audio category!
I'm going to give this high marks for the graphics and sound but I literally could not get past the introductory walking sequence; I can deal with spooky and creepy but I couldn't deal with the tension after the voice introduced the clicking element ^_^;
None of this is meant as criticism; I just can't deal with certain kinds of horror and this is one of those kinds ^_^;
@ted-marsh I choose not to opt into the audio category because even though I mixed all the sound, I did not create all of it from scratch, so it doesn't feel fair to get rated against games were all audio is created from the ground up. Lovely to hear you found it spooky though, that means I did my job!
@ryusui Haha, i see the game being too scary as only the highest compliment! Awesome to hear you liked the graphics and sound, those were also my favourite parts!
For a custom game engine, nice job my friend! I love the graphics and the voice on the computer! :D nice work!
The graphics on this are insane for a custom game engine, I'm unsure of how well it suits the theme per say, but this is pretty great, really good job!
The graphic is beautiful for a custom engine and the atmosphere is great. Maybe tweak the camera/mouse control a bit to reduce motion sick.
Really nice mood ! the work is incredible. Nice Art, LD and sound !
Oh my, this sends shivers down my spine :scream: Awesomely executed, super fun to see other games not running a standard engine!
Wish there were a quicksave
Graphic is spooky on itslef. Very cool! But I didn't get how I died two times:) Thank u for experience.
I download the files but windows gave me an error and Norton removed and unsafe files so i watched the video to vote . I like the concept , it reminds me of games i played in the past . Nice classic games. I love the graphics. Good Job :)
I respect a lot custom engines, it's one of my goal to publish a game made with my own one day. The way you made your graphics is really clever, making sense of something that would usually be called "buggy". Very impressive performance and I think it does it's job very well !
@d3kryption Thank you so much!
@underdog Thank you! Yeah, just like I mentioned in a previous comments, it doesn't fit the theme amazingly well. I was going more for a loose connection to the theme. The sun being such a stable part of human life, it turning against us would surely make life unstable etc etc.
@hobzone Thank you! I'm happy you liked these parts in particular, since those were the ones I worked the hardest on. :smile:
@amikatag Yeah, in hindsight at least not forcing the player to re-play the intro after they've died would've made the experience much better - but I didn't playtest it enough to realize just how difficult the game actually is.
@jackiex9527 Hm, how exactly do you mean motion sick? Was there any specific part that induced any form of motion sickness rather than just how the camera behaves?
@praccen Thank you so much! Happy it made you at least slightly spooked. Yeah, I've never really been much of a game engine person, I've always preferred to roll my own stuff.
@iradchenua Hm. Could you not see the enemies? I've had a few reports about this occurring. The console should report any potential misbehaving of the engine, so if there was anything in there that looked out of the ordinary, feel free to let me know and I'll see if its workable!
@intodarkness Thats a shame! I promise though, theres absolutely nothing malicious about the code (in fact I don't even use the standard c++ functions that might trigger antiviruses, like system)
@tomtomgome Thank you so much! I'm sure you'll be able to do it one day, it's really not so bad once you get the hang of it.
I agree with everyone else that the atmosphere of this game is outstanding! Even though I really am not a fan of horror games I gave this one a try anyway. But as expected, I could not make it to the end, I am sorry >_< However, I think that it shows that you did a proper job to at least scare me away :)
As for feedback, I mostly have what other people have already said. It was a bit annoying having to wait through the entire computer introductory screne at the beginning everytime you died. I also never got further than the time when someone starts crying, because I die and I have no idea why. Apparently there were enemies that moved very fast, but I never saw them and this felt a bit unfair. Maybe it is the bug you mentioned before?
However, the sound design and after effects worked really well to create a super scary atmosphere. Amazing game! :D
@uglyswedishfish Don't worry about this , i also had a norton alert from our own game . It happen all the times with indie games
@wuppos Haha, feels great it gave you a good spook! Yeah, it seems like a bug - I haven't yet managed to track it down (or even reproduce it for that matter). Hopefully I'll have a patch ready at some point, if you want to; I could notify you if that does occur. (Like I mentioned previously, if the console did log anything worth noting please let me know!) Awesome that you liked the sound effects!
Really interesting presentation. Sadly, too frustrating to get further than dying to the pyvpxref a short ways in, especially since I didn't want to play fullscreen—retyping the resolution settings every time and then listening to the same recording before you can get out the door gets old fast.
I'd be interested to see what else could be done with the lighting engine you mention—I feel like the little snippet of game I saw probably doesn't do it justice.
Ambitious entry!
Hey there! Too bad your engine didn't render the enemy during our stream. Feel free to contact me again if you have another build that you would like me to try on my machine. The best is to hook me on discord! Thanks for joining us live!
I finally had the time to come back and rate everything I played so far!
Here is a link to the vod of the review if you wish to see it again: https://www.youtube.be/watch?v=h15d_WbzH64&t=3664s
Excellent work by the artists.